Maybe Tennessee has more testosterone in its soil? That might explain the quickness of Tennesseans to volunteer for any fight anywhere, resulting in their reputation as "the Volunteer State"---- the Southern military tradition distilled to its essence and writ large. Their quick response to any frustration runs toward physical violence, as noted in your link which described the loony plans of some angry male Tennesseans to rush off to Washington aiming to kill the new black President.

I understand that it was a woman who called the cops on the murderous guys. Hence my suggestion it is testosterone in the soil acting upon the males which causes the male Tennesseans to be such primitive baboons.

I hope this is a joke because I don't think that you really think Al Gore is a 'primitive baboon', or Alex Haley, or Abe Fortas, or....I hope you see my point.  Are Virginia men 'primitive baboons' because of the actions of George Allen?  

I didn't think so.

It's true, though he claims to be a Virginian I believe.

but it turns out his mother was Jewish, so there you go.    :)

I'm going to try to keep this civil, but your post is very ignorant, and I mean that in the 'lacking knowledge' sense of the word.

First, for someone who used to live in Tennessee, you don't seem to know much about the state.  For instance, the Commercial Appeal is generally considered to be a liberal newspaper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Commercial_Appeal).  Second, Memphis is a majority African American city (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis,_Tennessee#Demographics).  

SO, if the Commercial Appeal chose a photo of President-elect Obama in which he appears to look 'especially black', it was much more likely that it did so out of a sense of pride, not racism.  President-elect Obama's election was a very big deal (in the most positive sense possible) for some people in the South, especially African Americans.  You, without really much reason, jump immediately to the assumption that it was racist.  Maybe you should ask yourself why that is?

Second, you should be really, really careful about painting ANY state with such a broad brush.  Would we have liked it if people said Virginia was a racist state after 'macacca'?  Absolutely not.  Do we believe that that comment represents the sentiments of most Virginians?  The 2006 election proved that one to be false.  So to cast aspersions on a state of over 6 MILLION people based on the actions of some racist plotters is crazy and offensive.  

As to your point about Tennessee voting more Republican in 2008 than 2004, it's true.  It's also true of Arkansas, home of the Clintons, and by a wider margin might I add.  People way smarter than me have analyzed this phenomenon and have come to some mixed conclusions about the causal relationship between perceived racism and '08 Republican turnout.  The NY Times has several pieces on it, for instance this one: http://freakonomics.blogs.nyti...  

My only point is that your aspersions are way off the mark, misinformed and offensive.  This is not my idea of bringing the country together.  

Just FYI, here are a few Tennesseans you might find acceptable: Abe Fortas, Al Gore, Alex Haley, Cordell Hull, and Sam Rayburn.

If you meant this in a sarcastic, joking way, you missed your mark.  Big time.

Of course there are pockets of enlightened people in Tennessee, and I am proud of them. However, Al Gore's father lost his senate seat because he opposed the Vietnam War. So there you are. The whole point of this post is to illustrate why I am happy I don't live there. I hope you are not suggesting that I shouldn't have this opinion and that I should move back. I moved away years ago and never looked back. I would not consider moving back and I also would not consider moving to the Southern part Virginia for the same reason.

If you are enlightened in Tennessee you are going to be lonely and suffer from persecution if you live in a rural area, and in many cities. Finding a group of like minded people is often difficult.

Any state which voted more Republican in 2008 than in 2004 has, in my opinion, a problem. I stand by that. I would be happy for these people to want to work with the admistration, but I would caution any centrist if they think they are going to be able to work with most of these people. Nevertheless I do think that these people will be the first with their hand out asking for help and asking for the new green industries. As to whether that will solve their racist problems, I don't know.

I lived in Memphis and my mother is from Memphis. Although my parents were educated, family gatherings always had a liberal dose of racist drivel proclamations sprinkled on all. There was plenty of sexism as well. As a matter of fact, being a woman was only a notch above being black in their eyes.

I know about Memphis culture. Sorry you can't seem to take a valid critique of this part of the country. People from Norhtern Virginia just have NO idea what it is like there.

The picture of Obama on The Commercial Appeal front page reminded me of the coloring of Uncle Ben on the Uncle Ben rice boxes. I have noticed that often the pictures of Obama at Fox News showed the same coloring. Being an artist I study such things so tnis is not my imagination. Now at this point I have to say to myself "Who are you going to believe, RadicalCentrist or you're own eyes?".

but the problem is that you take your personal experiences and then impose them on all Tennesseans, especially ironic since you admit that you haven't lived there in a long time.  That's problematic.  Your post didn't allow for the existence of folks like Al Gore.  You basically said Tennessee is nothing but a bunch of racists.  That's both factually wrong and offensive.  I'm sure the members of the hundreds of Dean Meetup groups that popped up in 2003-04 all over Tennessee would be very surprised to learn that you can't find like-minded people in Tennessee.  

Do you want to be tarred with Morgan Griffith's views?  Do we make generalizations about Virginia as a whole based on the views of some people in Southwest Virginia?  While your response is nuanced, and I appreciate that, your post was not.  

Moreover, you still seem stuck on ascribing motivations to the Commercial Appeal that you can't back up.  You don't address the fact that Memphis is a majority African American city.  Now either the Commercial Appeal is composed of really bad business people who want to offend their largest constituency, or you are simply wrong.  An admission of that seems appropriate.

I definitely can take a valid critique when I come across one, this just isn't one.  You grossly overgeneralize and ascribe your experiences to a whole state of over 6 million.  

Oh and one other thing, I'm definitely NOT from Northern Virginia, I've been to and STILL go to family gatherings exactly like the one your describe and not very far from Memphis, so hold your 'you can't understand' lectures for someone else please.  I'd never suggest that you should move back to Tennessee; if this is how you view its people, then we'd happier if you stay where you are.    

I never said ALL Tennesseans were racists, but I believe over 50 percent probably are. One would not say ALL Germans were Nazis either yet their government and military did horrible things because they reflected enough of the prevailing culture to get away with it. Of course there were also those who resisted and they are to be commended.

I am speaking generally of a culture. A culture has a character and within a culture there are what's called social norms. That's what I am condemning, not individuals.

You must know quite well that Sarah Palin, Rush, and O'Reilly appeal to this culture. It spans states therefore it is not a state even though it is concentrated in certain states.

As far as the picture in The Commercial Appeal goes, I do know the difference between a real photograph and a colorized image. When you see this front page surrounded by all the other front pages from newpapers across the country which ran photos of Barack Obama (as is displayed on a big screen at the Newseum) its really obvious that there is something wrong with the picture from The Commercial Appeal. Perhaps this colorize photo was just an accident. Perhaps they thought a real photo didn't look good enough. Since this is free country I am free to draw my own conclusions, and I did.

So, having said all that I will still say that I'm glad I don't live there anymore.

I appreciate it.  It's part of what makes this site so great.  I still disagree with you, but that's OK.    

Nice to have people around who care enough to discuss the issues.

Yes, there are more blacks than whites in Memphis. Nevertheless the power structure and the major newpaper have historically been controlled by whites. I can't say whether The Commercial Appeal is now run by African Americans. Maybe you can find out for us. I just assumed it is white run as it always was in years past (even though more blacks lived in Memphis).

Of course if it run by blacks now I would interpret the colorized photo of Barack as a jab at the white power structure, since he was two or three shades darker than on any other newspapers surrounding it in the display.

I believe you, Rebecca, based on the fact not of your citation of others' footnoted comments, but on the fact  of your personal experience over an extended period of time: you saw and experienced what you now describe. Perhaps someone else would have drawn a different lesson from your experiences, but that does not invalidate your observations.

As for radicalCentrist, I regret having offended him as a matter of personal courtesy, but I stand by my snarky comments, too. So Al Gore is from Tennesee, and that should change my opinion of his state of origin? As I recall, Tennessee rejected him when he ran for President---- his own sate did not give its electoral vote to him, which says as much about Tennessee as it does about ol' Al (as a matter of fact, as I recall, too, Mr. Gore was "from" Tennessee and once he escaped he never really went back, and was more a denizen of Washington than Tennessee, anyway).

Censorship by invoking Political Correctness can be as deadening as censorship by government fiat.  

First, I'd never seek to censor anyone.  My whole point was that you both said some pretty nasty, serious things about an entire state with very little evidence to base them on.  I found that objectionable both as a male Tennessean (or 'primitive baboon' if you will) and as a person who probably substantially agrees with your political views.  We're on the same team, but you both don't seem to want to accept that as possible.  

and I acknowledge that the phrase "primitive baboon" might be offensive (although even primitive baboons may have their uses).

I wonder, though: at what point does sheer quantiy result in a qualitative difference? Clearly, Tennessee today in aggregate is footdragging its way into the 21st century, since, by weight of numbers the social system endorses the radical right's point of view, and, as other areas outside change and move forward, this must threaten the prevailing viewpoint and causes a defensive re-trechment to which Rebecca attests. The push to conform, the personal attacks and threats apparently forced her to pack up and leave (quite a brave thing to do in the context), and, I would guess, any contact she's had with family or others she left behind, inform her that nothing has really changed, so she has no reason to return.

Actually, I do not think Tennessee is the only area like that---- unfortunately, much of the world seems clamped into a similar parochial rigidity, and, when you get right down to it, Northern Virginia and other coastal metro areas may be something of an aberration. Thus was it ever.

there's a whole lot of work to do in Tennessee.  

BUT, there are some reasons to hope that the state is changing as well.  Tennessee recently elected a Democratic governor, twice.  That's not small potatoes.  Tennessee Democrats nominated an African American for the US Senate in 2006.  That was a big deal as well.  Now, the fact that he lost is disheartening, but he lost by less than 3 points.  President-elect Obama lost by 15.  Unless Tennessee got a whole lot more racist in two years, that fact alone would seem to undercut the argument presented.  

Is it possible that Tennessee is just a conservative state, not a racist one?  That a large portion of it was willing to support a conservative African American Democrat like Harold Ford, but not a liberal African American Democrat like Barack Obama (and thank goodness he is)?  If race was the overriding factor, how do we explain Harold Ford's performance in 2006, especially given the fact that his uncle was under Federal indictment at the time?  If ever there was a time for racism to rear its ugly head, you would think that that was it.  

The truth is, there are liberals in Tennessee and there are conservatives.  It would appear right now, that there are more conservatives than liberals, I'd have to acknowledge.  But, just like in Virginia, a large portion of the state sits smack in the middle too.  There are racists, and there are people like John Siegenthaler, founder of the First Amendment Center.  There are civil rights activists of all colors and creeds in Tennessee.  It's far too simple, and wrong, to paint with such a broad brush.  We do a disservice to the many who do believe in equality and justice when we do so.  This was my whole point of contention.    

Interesting story; Ford (not exactly pure as the driven snow himself) was, as I recall, defeated by a very suggestive racist ad campaign ("Call me sometime"), which worked exceedingly well in Tennessee. I wondered how such an attempt would play here in Virginia, with RaisingKaine ready, willing, and able to expose it and snark it into the ground, like "macaca."

As for characterizing the state as being naturally more "conservative," to my mind gets into semantics, and how the word "conservative" has come to mean something quite different from what I learned it meant in my Republican childhood... "reactionary" is more like it, and I say this with strong half-Southern background, as my Dad was from the South Carolina Low Country with deep roots in South Carolina's Confederate past. I have relatives much like those Rebecca mentioned.